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When Rojan reduces Shea and Thompson, the camera work deliberately shifts position of the cubes so we don't necessarily remember which was which. Shea is restored but Thompson isn't.

Both were equally nonessential to Rojan so both were picked. After seeing this episode umpteen times I just asked myself yesterday: did Rojan deliberately select her? Or, being both nonessential, did he simply randomly act without remembering which was which? I'd steer towards random unknowing on his part. What say you?

__________________''Four questions, joker. Why do you leave your pets on the floor where they can get squashed, who's this idiot with the dark glasses, where's my Becky, and what the HELL are you doing floating on the ceiling?''

That's an interesting scene (I admit I was surprised that the male redshirt wasn't the one to die).

Rather than "random unknowing," I'd think of it as deliberate neutrality--or maybe just plain apathy for which one it'd be; I don't think Rojan thought that one or the other would have been more persuasive to remain alive. I think that as a non-human, he saw them as equals, so he thought the point of his persuasion was specifically his ability to kill--not whom he'd kill.

__________________Trek Sift - Sifting TNG character quotes like no one has sifted before. Each post consists of quotes, rearranged by sentence, to produce a delight/disturbance (based on character and episode).

Each time I watch this episode, I carefully try to follow the cubes through the scene. I agree that the director/crew got it right - the female crew member's cube was destroyed.
I can't say what Rojan was thinking when deciding which to destroy, but the writer certainly did give it thought. In destroying the woman's cube, it gave a greater impact to the story - remember the context of the time.
As an aside, when watching the episode I often wonder did the restored crew member have a headache, or other assorted bumps and bruises from being tossed about while in a 'dehydrated' state?

Once he was restored, Shea looked perfectly normal and unhurt. And he was still upright, which given these cubes were truly ten-sided, defies the odds.

__________________''Four questions, joker. Why do you leave your pets on the floor where they can get squashed, who's this idiot with the dark glasses, where's my Becky, and what the HELL are you doing floating on the ceiling?''

In destroying the woman's cube, it gave a greater impact to the story - remember the context of the time.

I'd love to have this part elaborated on (I didn't live through the context of the time, by the way). If it was the woman that survived, it'd be a sort of damsel-in-distress situation--is the impact the fact that the situation didn't allow for woman-saving to occur? (Also, is it somewhat good/refreshing that the damsel-in-distress cliche was thereby avoided?)

I'm also wondering, what if it wasn't revealed right away who the survivor was?

__________________Trek Sift - Sifting TNG character quotes like no one has sifted before. Each post consists of quotes, rearranged by sentence, to produce a delight/disturbance (based on character and episode).

I kept thinking about the remaining crew and the Kelvins casually walking around the halls littered with those shapes. You'd think someone might be conscientious enough to stow them all in a big room somewhere, where they'd be safe. I wouldn't want to bargain bin them into a huge pile—imagine the chaos if one of the Kelvins blithely restored the entire pile all at once! Phone booth cramming, Kelvin style.

And why did the Kelvins send a "generation ship" from Andromeda if they could...

Hey, Doc Ostrow! Stop juggling your patients!

__________________
"No, I better not look. I just might be in there."
—Foghorn Leghorn, Little Boy Boo

In destroying the woman's cube, it gave a greater impact to the story - remember the context of the time.

I'd love to have this part elaborated on (I didn't live through the context of the time, by the way). If it was the woman that survived, it'd be a sort of damsel-in-distress situation--is the impact the fact that the situation didn't allow for woman-saving to occur? (Also, is it somewhat good/refreshing that the damsel-in-distress cliche was thereby avoided?)

I'm also wondering, what if it wasn't revealed right away who the survivor was?

Maybe is just me, but a woman's death has more impact than a man's does. It elicits more sympathy, and generates more loathing for perpetrator. Coupled with Kirk's obvious 'fondness for the ladies' this is the writer's way to clearly delineate the Kelvins as evil.

Even at the highest warp speed they could manage, it still took more than one Kelvan lifespan to get from one galaxy to the other. That's why they would need a generation ship.

I think Metryq meant, why didn't the Kelvans reduce themselves to cubes for long term travel, with their equipment set to automatically restore the crew once it reached our galaxy.

The savings in life support system resources and food would be simply vast.

It would, but maybe there isn't any automatic switch on their belt gadgets? In any case, risking the whole crew in such fragile forms wouldn't be a very smart move. It takes hardly any effort at all to crush those polyhedrons.